Sunday, March 20, 2016

"A Little Something Special"

Er...uh. So some time ago, it was commenter Pan Miliuś' birthday, and in a fit of magnanimity, I offered to write about a story of his choice, which turned out to be this one. And then, there's no other way to say it, I just completely flaked the fuck out, and forgot about the whole thing before I actually did any writing (which he has generously failed to call me out on). So it's time to redress an old wrong. Sorry, dude! Uh...happy birthday, even though if anything, it's probably closer to your next birthday at this point! Or some other, future birthday! Who knows!

In my partial defense, I didn't keep putting it off just because I'm lazy. It's also because it weirds me out and embarrasses me in a way that no other Disney story does, and I always kinda felt that the best--or easiest, at least!--thing to do, therefore, was just ignore it. But I guess in the interest of free inquiry, I can no longer do that. So let's get the fuck into it. I'm going to assume that everyone reading this is familiar with this story, and I'm not going to try to go through it beat by beat.


The point of this story, of course, is to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Scrooge's inaugural appearance in "Christmas on Bear Mountain," by celebrating his putative original arrival in Duckburg (according to Rosa's chronology, that would set this in 1952). So the main questions we want to ask is: what exactly are we celebrating, and how are we celebrating it?


Well, the easiest thing to point out here is the villains that we're commemorating. I don't think there's that much to say about this aspect of the story, to be honest. It works okay. It's true--as they awkwardly spell out for the benefit of readers, above--that none of the three "overlap," exactly. Villain team-ups rarely if ever avoid that gimmicky feeling, and there's a certain rote quality to their scheming, but, again--it's okay.


Hell, this part's even pretty funny, I think. Novel and amusing!


A minor complaint about this story may be the general lack of spectacle, which is surprising from Rosa, especially when he's specifically trying to do a Spectacular like this. That device could be super-cool, after the manner of dueling steam shovels or Paul Bunyan machines, but it never gets a chance to shine, and makes basically no impression. Perplexing.

But those are the villains. The question is, why are we celebrating Scrooge? What do we like about him? That is an enormous question.


Okay, but WHY WHY WHY?!? I mean, okay, so this "contest" is secretly being run by the villains, but FIFTY YEARS OF SCROOGE IN DUCKBURG is clearly meant to mean something! It's the whole point of the story!

(Sidenote: is that supposed to be...Von Drake on the right there? Unless it's the mysteriously vanished Casey Coot (seriously, what happened to that guy?), I don't see who ELSE it can be. Which just goes to show: a good part of Rosa's appeal is because he's so willing to push the limitations imposed on him to their absolute limits, but this can also be problematic: having the guy appear just once like this is distracting and just raises the question of why we don't see any more of him.)


I mean, the above is meant to be a joke, but, I mean, it's a pretty accurate representation of Rosa's Scrooge.  Why the fuck would anyone want to celebrate this asshole?


Do you find this particularly convincing?  'Cause to me, it seems like a pretty perfunctory effort at a justification.  See, I had an insight while thinking about this story, which I think explains a good part of why it doesn't exactly work for me. Because, sure, Scrooge has been great for the community--I guess? Maybe?--but really, who cares? Nobody who is a fan of Scrooge is a fan because of the economic benefits he's brought to the town. We're fans because he's adventurous and tough and smart and cantankerous-with-a-heart-of-gold, and his childlike relationship to money is fun.

DA POINT BEING: Scrooge is not a civic figure. You could make a good argument that he's anti-civic. His relationships that matter are those with his family, not with the community at large. And that's why emphasizing the latter just seems weirdly irrelevant.


OF COURSE, you could say that it's not fair of me to fixate on this one technical point and ignore what the story does have to offer. And to that I say: FAIR ENOUGH! SUFFICIENTLY FAIR! I really DO think the fact that the story is trying to do something incompatible with Scrooge's character is damaging, but I will admit that this undercity stuff is pretty neat (though probably thinking too hard about how this could've happened--in less than fifty years!--is not going to get you anywhere).


...this would be extremely compelling if the idea was that Scrooge was actually willing to let them escape with his money rather than destroy the city.  But...then, oh, he knew all along it wasn't gonna happen.  Whee?  Rosa really dropped the ball on this one.


This is pretty awesome, though. As far as Scrooge's alleged deep affection for the town goes, I'm gonna have to respond with a big ol' CITATION NEEDED. Still, Rosa pulls it well enough that that almost doesn't matter; you get swept away in spite of everything (though if we're really interested in this theme, the definitive piece is obviously "His Majesty, McDuck," which I recently reread for the first time in a long time and which is so good it makes me WEEP).


I mean, okay, AWWW. Rosa may oft err on the side of making Scrooge excessively mean, and this doesn't exactly make up for that, but still: AWWW.

Hoo boy, but now we're going to have to get into this "secret desire" stuff, and frankly, the whole reason I was reluctant to write about this story was because I really, really didn't WANT to talk about Scrooge's "secret desire." BUT WHAT THE HELL, RIGHT? LET'S DO THIS THING. DAMN THE TORPEDOES.

Look, let me start by confirming that I am a huge fan of Rosa. My occasional sniping shouldn't obscure that fact. Certain people from certain defunct Disney forums can get passive-aggressive about it all they like, but the fact is, he got popular because he was really, really good at doing a thing that resonated with a lot of people, including me. Obviously, that's not to say that his thing was the only valid thing that a Disney cartoonist can do, but the fact remains, what he was good at he was goddamn good at, and it really, really noticeably stood out from what every one else was doing. You can make a pretty durn persuasive case that if not for the renewed interest in the form that he kindled, we wouldn't have Disney comics in the States right now.

That said, his work, on occasion, has some serious flaws, many of which are closely related to the very things that make him great. As I noted above, his willingness to try to push his stories to do things that Disney comics aren't meant to do is exciting, and it's a large part of his appeal. On the other hand, the fact remains that when you're trying to do something and the form won't quite let you do it, the results can be unsatisfying, if not actually misbegotten. I feel like this is leading to something, somehow.

Man I KEEP trying to write something about Scrooge and Goldie, and then it keeps being unsatisfactory and I keep deleting it and starting over. This does not appear to be getting anywhere, so just forget it. Let's approach this part of the story for what it is.
---
Okay, so in light of comments which have ably convinced me that I'm almost certainly wrong (how did this douchebag get a PhD in literary analysis? you may wonder. I often ask myself the same question), I feel that the responsible thing to do is to rewrite the second part of this entry. Partially this is because it only seems fair to Rosa, to whom I apologize for slandering his story (though given that what follows isn't going to be super-positive either, it's anyone's guess how far that apology goes).

In addition, it's partially because, hell, I feel I can do BETTER. I would like it to be the case that people browsing around years in the future who come across this blog will be able to glean value from this nonsense, and for that to happen, I feel like it's better if more than half of this post not be focused on tilting at windmills.

So, okay, for the record, as of right now, I do not believe that the idea that Goldie was shipped over for a brief assignation with Scrooge is a viable interpretation. HOWEVER, in fairness--fairness?--to me, at least part of this confusion is probably due to the fact that this aspect of Rosa's Scrooge is one that I find kind of hard to swallow in any case. Yes, I know that various entries I've written in the past contradict this, but for whatever reason, these days I'm a li'l less starry-eyed and a li'l more cynical about this relationship. I think "Last Sled to Dawson" is FINE, maybe Rosa's first great story, but I feel that there is value in leaving it at that. Because the more I think about it, the more dubious I get. Let's face it: after Scrooge leaves the Klondike, he and Goldie have been living separate lives for fifty years. It appears that they have had no contact between "Back to the Klondike" and "Dawson." Sure, maybe at one point they had a brief thing, and I'm not saying that that thing didn't have value and meaning for what it was, but c'mon, at this point they're effectively strangers. Why would you assume that their brief fling would translate at such a remove into long-term domesticity? Not that people haven't reunited under similar circumstances--more things on heaven and earth!--but the idea that this is DESTINED TO HAPPEN just feels incredibly immature to me. Look--I'm speaking from my own experience here, but I imagine many of you can relate--think about the first person you had a really intense romance with. Think about how all-consuming it seemed, and how the idea of living without this person seemed inconceivable. NOW, think back to that, keeping in mind that the interval between then and now is almost certainly a LOT less than fifty years, and ask yourself: do you think you're DESTINED to get back together? If you're like me, your answer is no, of course not, that's insane. I mean granted, judging Scrooge and Goldie purely by how "realistic" their relationship is may be missing the point by a good margin; there's room for romantic license. But boy--I just have so much trouble buying it; if something like this is gonna work at all, I feel like there has to be a lot of groundwork which Rosa never did--granted, in large part because, working under the Disney regime, he wouldn't have been allowed to, but I'm not judging anyone's platonic ideal of Scrooge/Goldie here; I'm judging what, for better or worse, we have.

Maybe there's more to it than that. Maybe some people aren't necessarily married (ho ho) to the idea of Scrooge and Goldie per se; they just think Scrooge may be lonely without female companionship. Aw, that's sweet. But--and I realize that this is probably the Most High Blasphemy, from Rosa's perspective--I have to say, I think that if such a thing needs to happen at all (not that I really think it does), probably Brigitta would be a better match for Scrooge than Goldie. Not Scarpa's original toxic, pathetically clingy Brigitta, of course, but the later, stronger version; sure, why not? They know each other well, they largely understand and have at least grudging respect for one another--I think the idea that their relationship could blossom into love is a lot more plausible than the idea that, at this late stage, Scrooge and Goldie would be right for one another. Feel free to tell me in comments that I'm crazy.

Well lookit me, I SAID I didn't want to write about Scrooge and Goldie, and then I barfed up six hundred words about them. Go me. BUT ANYWAY, the POINT of all this is that if I've had trouble really grasping the last part of this story, it's gotta be in part because I don't really grasp them these days.


One thing that hasn't changed for me about this story is that I continue to find Daisy's and Miss Quackfaster's sly smugness here hella creepy. Argh. I'm very strongly struck by Debbie Anne's idea, in comments, that these two may just really, really not know what they're doing. This runs strongly against Rosa's grain, but it seems to me that it makes a lot of sense to think of this segment in those terms. There's all sorts of unresolved stuff here that they don't have a clue about; they're just mixing volatile chemicals willy nilly and blithely assuming nothing bad will come of it. Scrooge isn't wrong to be upset about this.


For all my criticism of this, I'll admit that that first panel is an effective bit of staging, as she appears like a vision. Can we concede, at least, that "Something only I can give him! Just a little something...special!" is an awkward line, and that my original interpretation was not wholly out of left field? Also, did Rosa take his notion of what ducks kissing on the lips should look like straight from Barks' prehistoric ten-pager "Lifeguard Daze?"


Survey sez yes!

And now, I'm going to push back just a little regarding what I think is going on here. Do I think that Miss Quackfaster and Daisy specifically summoned Goldie for some sorta one-night stand? Well, no; I think the most likely thing is that they didn't have all that clear an idea of what exactly was going to happen when the two of them were together. Just try it an' see! Still, even if it's not quite as crass as I was originally envisioning it, I think it's certainly true that--as with any romantic relationship, particularly one as fraught at this one--love and lust are all tangled up in Scrooge's mind, and Goldie's possible sexual availability right here right now can't not be part of what's going through his head, even if Goldie isn't talking dirty to him there--even if it's more along the lines of a marriage proposal (say). Certainly, Scrooge's shell-shocked appearance there is due to all of this shit that's been simmering in his mind utterly unexpectedly all coming to a boil at once.

(I won't deny that that whisper does still bug me; it's hard to think of any really natural-sounding thing she could be saying there that makes a whole lot of sense. I know it's meant to be ambiguous, but there's good-ambiguous and bad-ambiguous.)


Seriously, I would LOVE to hear what people think about that whole "this won't be something for the eyes of a Junior Woodchuck" bit, 'cause I am NOT buying that it can possibly have anything to do with that kiss, which is something you could see in any ol' PG-rated movie, and which in any case I presume--hope!--that Daisy and Miss Quackfaster aren't spying on Scrooge and Goldie either. To me, this has gotta be the most maladroit thing in the story, and I'm having a lot of trouble thinking of a way that it makes sense.


...I will concede that "I'll wait" doesn't necessarily mean "...for a few minutes, while you psych yourself up," especially given that "bye, Scrooge." Yes, it's more likely that it's a "come up north when you're ready and we'll get this show on the road" sort of thing. But dammit, this is just more of the sort of thing that annoys me about this whole "romance:" more deferment? Seriously, fifty years wasn't enough? You're no spring chickens, you know!  I mean JEEZ, if you REALLY need a little more time, it can't be more than a few days, so just get her a hotel room!  Her going back to the Klondike again is pure idiocy!  Let alone having her wait years while you do more adventures.  And THIS, for good and all, may be where Disney's strictures trip Rosa up. Yes, MORE deferment, because that's the way it has to be, by Disney law! I mean, not that Disney law is even wrong about this; obviously you can't suddenly have Scrooge be married. But it's just death for this storyline, I'm sorry to say.

...and I would still really like to know what these bars of music are. SOMEONE has to know!

Labels:

111 Comments:

Blogger GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

It occurs to me that, in spite of everything, there IS a reasonable chance that this is really meant to be a "what if" sort of thing, and that in that case it really WOULD be a conclusion--Scrooge and Goldie 4 ever 2 gether, as the song says. I maintain, however, that (possibly because of editorial demands) this is presented in the most pointlessly confusing way possible; also, to reiterate, given how obsessed Rosa is with dates, the fact that there's clear textual evidence that this is NOT "the end" cannot help but appear extremely relevant. I wouldn't CARE about such things were they not essential to Rosa's vision.

March 21, 2016 at 2:18 AM  
Anonymous Review Or Die said...

Extremely detailed thoughts indeed. This was going to be a short post. But they're never short posts, and due to HTML requirements in fact has to be two posts.

While I'd like to give you a much more detailed answer to this in terms of specifics, I'll admit that right now I'm re-reading the entirety of Rosa's bibliography (that I can get my hands on) so I can better prepare for the reviews to come. Incidentally, as much as I love The Pertwillaby Papers, they are a very dense read. More bang for your buck! But still a dense read.

I know we've discussed this story before, where I basically said it had to be the 'last' Scrooge story for it to make any kind of sense. There's a real feeling, at least to me, of finality to it. Perhaps part of it is that whenever I read a Rosa story, I'm not just reading Rosa's Scrooge/Donald/nephews, but the backbone of Barks' beneath and intertwined with it. So I see the warmer parts from "Micro Ducks from Outer Space", or the two Tralla-La stories... even though it does lead to the serious problem of the public not celebrating these private acts of kindness.

There's a Supernatural episode called "Fan Fiction", the 200th episode. By this point the original creator was long gone, and the original story was over five seasons ago. The main characters stumble on to someone putting on a play that continues the 'original' story (how they know to do that is irrelevant). But the whole episode is fan service, in that it is entirely for people who have been watching the show for a long time. If you just watched it without knowing the show, it's not a great hour of television. If you watched it after seeing a hundred episodes? It's a hell of a ride.

This story, more than any of the other anniversary ones, counts on one thing: that YOU, the reader, love Scrooge. That you have warm and nostalgic feelings that arise when you read about his adventures or his day-to-day life. In this sense it is, for me, wildly effective despite my late start in Disney comics. But I can't argue that the in-story logic isn't as tight as it could have been, and you addressed many of the reasons why in such a way where my commenting on it would be redundant (though it's a good thing that it takes very little for the crowd to disperse, I still think Donald's speech is a little too short to be as impactful as it seems). The problem here is probably even more notable because Rosa's 45th anniversary story was The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, and that he did another anniversary story that year for the triplets, and both of them were quite frankly better stories. I'd go in to the technical details of this story's failings and successes, but there's a reason I'm re-reading everything.

Continued in Part 2, I can't believe I'm writing that.

March 21, 2016 at 4:29 AM  
Anonymous Review Or Die said...

The date thing... well... as a DC fanboy, someone who is obsessed with the minutiae of continuity, of carefully retconning things so they fit in to a perfect pattern, I can tell you with complete honesty that it's irreconcilable as a final story unless you assume that almost the entirety of Barks/Rosa's stories after Scrooge came around took place between Christmas of 1947 and this point in 1952. Which, given the lack of growth from the kids, kind of fits if you ignore everything about the dating that's presented in author's notes and things you actually see on the page. Frankly, I'm willing to ignore the little things to provide a more fitting emotional end. But it's still just blatantly ignoring things that you can see with your own eyes by painting over it, like claiming, "Uh, Sharpie of Culebra Cut just had her off-panel!" if you want to go with the actual written date of 1953. Part of this is that I ascribe to the "the author's opinion is interesting but not canon" school of reading, which is why I'm going to probably outright contradict things he says to be true outside of his stories in later reviews.

Okay, the one point where we outright disagree! You can call me naive if you want. While I can't in any way argue about the boinking that went on in the cabin, I do think that what happened here was not a booty call. The way I always pictured it was that... well, looking at every single interaction Donald had with Scrooge, how he treats Goldie, his side-chapters in The Life and Times, The Quest for Kalevala, even the Beagle Boys/Money Bin story (which implied that Scrooge had a painting of Goldie in his room), The Black Knight Glorps Again, Last Sled to Dawson, and seeing what a prideful, stubborn idiot Scrooge is? I can see Donald telling Goldie enough to say that he's not over her. I can see Goldie telling him in that panel that she still loves him. And I can see her saying "I'll wait" for him to come to her, because she knows she won't have to wait long.

I wonder if he'll bring that box of chocolates from his sled in "Last Sled to Dawson."

Anyway. One kiss and a promise that the woman he loves will be there when he's ready, and it being pretty clear that he's ready, is all I took from that. Maybe there are a few more adventures after that, where he ended up having her on his mind. Maybe that's really when Quest for Kalevala took place, the last step he needed to go back to the Yukon and ask her to come back with him, taking reality rather than fantasy.

Seems like a pretty good birthday present to me, to be reminded that he's had fifty years in a place he loves, and that he can have that and more if he's willing to open up. Just a little bit. Even if it's just one more person than a statue he built to win a bet.

This is still a weird tale and as you said, a good "Imaginary Story". He wrote at least one non-canon Duck story before where he just threw up his hands. But that's how I bend it in my head, and how I read it. It could be that I'm using non-Euclidean reasoning, but it's mine.

Good lord, I think someone cut 'brevity' from my dictionary. Probably laconic, too.

Good talk.

March 21, 2016 at 4:30 AM  
Blogger Pan Miluś said...

AAAAAH!!!! What a great birthday gift ^_^ ^_^ ^_^ (and Your right - my birthday is in May, so this is one cool early gift :D )

I'll openly admit, when I read this story for the first time my young and so innocent at the time mind asume that she was ment just to kiss him and I never bother to analyse this part other then "Oh, how nice. Daisy got something to contribiute in a Rosa story") At best I asumed it felt forced like Rosa wanted to give each recurring character a moment in this story... But yhe, the more I think about it it is pretty akward.

I honestly always liked this story as at the time I read it felt like this big "season finally" (?) to Rosa stories - just this big party where all the characters and aspects have their moment (well looking back now, not all the aspect but you get the idea) Today I woudn't put it among Rosas top 10 stories but at the time it felt like it.

Wha'ts your opinion on Grandpa Beagle being the big bad guy behind it all as well his motivation to wanting destroy Duckburg and therefor kill every single person in it? (the wole "I use to be the boss" felt to came out of nowhere) I found it a bit anti-climatic and an odd pick. Not to mentiom the question how old he's ment to be here if Scrooge is at leasti in his 80's and in Rosa continuity Grandpa Beagle is at least 20-something years older.


This is a far I know the only time (and I don't count stories he did to other people scripts in his early stages) Rosa touch upon Donald-Daisy-Gladsone love traingle and he did it in the most bizzare way only Rosa could ;)

Speaking of sex in Disney world - Note that in one panel he sugest Miss Quackerfaster seen one of Beagle Boys penis and it was the thing that made her faint (It's not my od imagination, it's strongly sugested)


Also note this story is a super rare example of Magica and Glomgold teaming up (the fact that she or he would work with the Bealges is an often sight) but Rosa never did much with the idea of them interacting. The only other example I can think of the two teaming up is that Italian story made few years ago "Scrooge's ultimate adventure" (which included Rockerduck) which felt like more interesting remake of this story (even if they don't really interact in that story) and the remake of Duckburg video game.


Anyway Thank You for finally giving your thoughts on this one :) Hope I didn't annoy you to much asking about it from time to time.

Your loyal fan/friend/commenter
Maciej Kur/Pan Miluś :)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

March 21, 2016 at 4:40 AM  
Blogger ramapith said...

"That Italian story made a few years ago" is just a few weeks away over here...

March 21, 2016 at 5:52 AM  
Blogger Debbie Anne said...

The whole Scrooge and Goldie thing really became a bit of an obsession for Don Rosa (and DuckTales), and I think it has become a bit overplayed. Goldie is an important part of Scrooge's mythos, but she represents the past that Scrooge can't get back. In my opinion, anything beyond "Back to the Klondike" and "Last Sled to Dawson" really seem unnecessary. Rosa's two Goldie stories "Hearts of the Yukon" and "The Prisoner of White Agony Creek" really seem like fanfiction to me (and the latter's cabin scene is a bit too adult for a Disney story). They're not bad stories, but they are a bit too sentimental for fans of the curmudgeonly Scrooge that Barks and others gave us (again, DuckTales tended to be a bit too sentimental at times also, but it is still mostly a fun series, but I digress). I have to agree with the commenters here that it seems like nothing beyond that kiss happens in "A Little Something Special". Scrooge is too stubborn to open up to Goldie, and doesn't show any emotion until she's safely away from his office. Goldie's whispered comment and " I'll wait" are likely left ambiguous on purpose, leaving it to the reader as to whether Goldie is waiting for Scrooge to commit to a relationship with her or just a night of fun. Miss Quackfaster and Daisy's reactions are just like any snoopy matchmaker's who is sticking their nose into someone else's love life and imagining how happy they'll supposedly be now that they've brought the two lovebirds together, despite their ignorance of most of the details of Scrooge and Goldie's "relationship". Let's face it, theirs is not a normal or healthy relationship. Perhaps that may be part of why Romano Scarpa created Brigitta MacBridge, to give Scrooge a seemingly more attainable love interest without as much of a shady backstory. But who knows?

March 21, 2016 at 9:54 AM  
Anonymous Gyro's Helper said...

I guess I first read this story when I was young and innocent, came up with my own interpretation, and then never questioned it when I got older. But I always took at as... she was theoretically coming to stay, but Scrooge refused her (though he obviously still has feelings for her). The "I'll wait" meant: "When you change your mind in a few more years and decide you do want to marry me after all, I'll be waiting for you."

March 21, 2016 at 10:13 AM  
Blogger Pan Miluś said...

I just asume she told him she wants to be his whife or simply "I love you"...

March 21, 2016 at 11:11 AM  
Blogger GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

Seriously, people, thanks for all the feedback. This whole thing is seeming a bit less nuts to me. I mean, okay, on some level I must have realized that my interpretation could not be what a sentimentalist like Rosa was going for, but I was seriously at a loss (and still am, a bit--seriously, what does "this won't be something for the eyes of a Junior Woodchuck" mean? It can't be the PG-rated kiss she's referring to; are we just supposed to think that emotional complexity is considered inappropriate for Woodchucks? And again, shouldn't EVERYONE be leaving?). Regardless. I don't think the whole thing is ever going to seem non-weird to me.

@Review Or Die My Secret Plan to get you to write about more Rosa stories: just write about 'em myself first! A fairly labor-intensive plan, admittedly...

@To be honest, I feel like Grandma Beagle is, in a sense, similar to Goldie: a minor character elevated to the status of Important in the Rosa mythos just because he relates in some way to the character's past. I doubt anyone's ever read this story and gone OMG IT'S HIM!

@Debbie I must admit, I kind of agree with you that Rosa's Scrooge/Goldie stuff is a bit much. "Last Sled to Dawson" is great, but after that, eh...I know there was a time when I felt really, really invested in the relationship, but these days I'm a bit more jaundiced. It is, as you point out, not a normal/healthy relationship in any case; that doesn't mean that one couldn't do something interesting with it, but Disney's (fairly reasonable, in this instance if few others) rules foreclose the possibility, and dancing around them just feels like, well, dancing around them to me.

March 21, 2016 at 11:57 AM  
Blogger GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

Also, Debbie, I'm very struck by the suggestion that this was just a BAD IDEA on the part of Daisy/Miss Quackfaster. I doubt Rosa would agree, but that, perhaps more than anything else, makes this whole thing more comprehensible to me.

March 21, 2016 at 12:01 PM  
Blogger GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

...and, obviously, the second @ in the comment two above should have "Pan Miluś" after it. OKAY.

March 21, 2016 at 12:09 PM  
Blogger GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

ONE MORE THING: What's that bar of music in the last panel? It seems like it might be important. I've appended it to the end of the post for your reference.

March 21, 2016 at 2:04 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I thought it was a pretty good story and should not have been overanalyzed.

March 21, 2016 at 2:34 PM  
Blogger GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

In that case you're on the wrong blog, kiddo.

March 21, 2016 at 2:37 PM  
Blogger Achille Talon said...

The music, I'm not SURE about it, but I have this theory that it might be "After the ball". Like at the end of "The Coin", Scrooge is humming/whistling Goldie's theme song, romantically. That would make a lot of sense.

About Grandpa Beagle… he's really a very recurring character in Italian comics, if you don't know; he's supposed to have permanently joined his sons in Duckburg, and is the head of their gang. On the other hand, it's also why Don Rosa's portrayal of him felt weird to me when I first read this. This "I used to be the boss" actually comes straight from Barks (carefully reread Barks's only story with him, Steamboat River story aside), and makes sense with how Don Rosa handled Grandpa in Chapter XII of the Life and Times.

And… yes, it is Ludwig Von Drake. Don Rosa confirmed it. Out of all the things he wasn't allowed to do, the one he resents the more his editor about is that he couldn't use Ludwig Von Drake, because he loves the guy, and really doesn't see why the editor didn't want him to use him; he can see why they wouldn't agree to Scrooge marrying Goldie or Hortense being dead, because even though he'd like to do it he knows he can't really do that, but Ludwig… why not ?

March 21, 2016 at 4:16 PM  
Blogger GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

Yeah, I'm familiar with the character from Italian stories, who hardly seems like the same character here. Adding to the confusion is the way people so often conflate Blackheart from "The Fantastic River Race" and Grandpa from "The Money Well." And also that I'm not sure whether said Italian stories are meant to be doing that or not.

March 21, 2016 at 4:49 PM  
Blogger Achille Talon said...

I think they have accepted Don Rosa's continuity when it came out and added it to their version of the character, but before that, Blackheart was neither Grandpa or another character — he was probably not, period. Barks's story was pretty much forgotten until Don Rosa referenced it in "Master of the Mississippi".

…and you thoughts about "After the Ball" being the whistled tune ?

March 21, 2016 at 4:52 PM  
Blogger GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

Well, I'm looking at sheet music online, and it doesn't *look* to me as though there's anything that matches this. But again, I am no expert.

March 21, 2016 at 5:03 PM  
Anonymous Elaine said...

Count me as one of those who think this is all about a kiss and a promise. Yes, they had sex in the cabin back in the day. No, the family is not arranging a further one-night stand here. Just bringing the love of his life for a visit, since they know he won't reach out to her. Shooing out the boys seems reasonable, since they are of an age to find kissing disgusting. "I'll wait" doesn't mean she'll wait for a bit in the next room--indeed, her silhouette disappears from the window in the door, and I assume that means she's left. It means "I'll be waiting for you in Alaska; there's never been anyone else for me" (sorry, Dickie's grandpa!).

That said, it doesn't work all that well for me. Rosa won me over to his take on many aspects of the life & legends, but not on this one. I am amused but not convinced by the shrine to Goldie in Scrooge's bedroom in "The Beagle Boys vs. the Money Bin." In my mind, when he's not actually facing Goldie, his interest in her has been pretty well transferred onto Money, the obsession that drives out all romantic thoughts (though it does not preclude all human attachment).

One thing I wonder about this story is, would the plotters have to explain what Scrooge did for Goldie in "Back to the Klondike" for her to be willing to come and for her to feel so loving towards him? And if so, do they have the right to do that, when Scrooge wanted to keep it secret from her?

Overall, I find the version of contemporary Goldie in DuckTales' "Ducky Mountain High" to be more satisfactory.

There were a bunch of moments in this story I much enjoyed, including the use of Gladstone's luck. And I was happy to see Ludwig Von Drake among the family, even though Rosa was prevented from showing him more openly. That didn't bother me--I was still glad he got to join the party.

March 21, 2016 at 11:44 PM  
Anonymous Review Or Die said...

Your plan was successful! Real life nonsense got in the way, but it is being worked on. It was working on Last Sled to Dawson after Return To Duckburg Place that I realized that it is arguably the most important review in terms of skeletal structure for everything else. Thus, after several delays in my real, actual life, the total re-reading of his work so I could do it justice. If only he had worked gradually instead of introducing about 70% of his recurring themes in this story! Lucky it's such a good one, or I might be offended by the prospect instead of just eager to get it right.

March 22, 2016 at 10:51 AM  
Blogger Pan Miluś said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

March 22, 2016 at 12:30 PM  
Blogger Pan Miluś said...

Well, since the inocent part of me that asume that people only have sex after they have a wedding is dead now (Once agian - fantastic review GeoX)I have a quastion :

Do you think Goldie was pregnant between events in "Prisoner of white agony creck" and "Hearts of Yukon"?

March 22, 2016 at 12:36 PM  
Blogger Achille Talon said...

Well, I think she did… and had whoever is Dickie Duck's father/mother. (So here's to the "Dickie's grandpa" problem that Elaine raised. To me, he's Scrooge.)

March 22, 2016 at 3:14 PM  
Blogger Pan Miluś said...

Yhe. I'm all for this idea :) :) :)

In all the stories I read HD&L refer to her "cousin" and vice versa and is "part of the family" so is logical for her to be related in the context of other stories...



March 22, 2016 at 4:32 PM  
Blogger GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

RIGHT, so taking everyone's criticism to heart, I have one hundred percent rewritten the second part of this post. I think the whole thing's a lot stronger now!

March 22, 2016 at 10:26 PM  
Anonymous Review Or Die said...

It's a good re-write, and most of the problems you have brought up in this version are the ones I have with it. There's going to be a good bit of "What he said" when I get to this.

Getting in to a discussion on the nature of love regarding Scrooge's first relationship... alright, that's a way longer discussion than I want to have at two AM in the morning before breakfast and when I've got the opposite of Jay-Z's problems today, but suffice it to say that there's an element of romanticism that exists partly due to Scrooge's age and the time period he grew up in that makes it (to my reading) more buyable than it would be in someone younger, within the context of Scrooge's 'larger than life' story that is the framework for how he is treated in this story and others by Rosa. It isn't realistic or plausible, but it's perhaps why it's written this way.

No comment on the Brigitta thing, I just don't know enough!

The 'not for Junior Woodchuck eyes' thing just felt like... God, I have to get back in to Barksian lore and extrapolating things based on what I'm probably not remembering well. Alright, it's not unreasonable to assume that Donald told Daisy about the events of Back to the Klondike, and the lie he told to Goldie and his family about the contest, and wanted to shoo them out to avoid introducing further complications. The 'no kidding' part on HDL's part is reflective of that, since they're pretty smart, not just knowledgeable.

And absolutely the "Something... special" is an awkward line. Removing the ellipses would help there, but it would also change the tone in a way which does not help the same. (Can I also comment on how weird Donald 'silly pills 'line is? Cause that's more out of place to me than anything, and oddly phrased to boot.)

Alright, truth time: looking through my old notes, I figured she DID get a hotel room. No reason for her to not stay for awhile for her own pleasure and tour with her hosts, let alone giving an opportunity for Scrooge to get his head out from under his tail.

Finally, about the music! I do not have an answer for this, but I have a clue. Maybe. At the end of my second-favorite Rosa story, "The Coin", Scrooge sings a song when thinking about Goldie. The lyrics are as follows: "When the violienes (sp) turn quiet.../when the day begins..." I've searched for the source of these lyrics unsuccessfully for several years. I am almost certain it is from a movie, that seems like his style, but I can't give you any more than that.

God The Coin is good. I love The Coin. THANK YOU FRANCE FOR COMMISSIONING THE COIN! The other stories Picsou commissioned were cool and all, but The Coin is easily one of the best he's ever done and straight up one of my favorite comics, period.

March 23, 2016 at 3:51 AM  
Blogger Pan Miluś said...

As for Daisy line...

Boy! This is the only time she did something analyis worthy in a Rosa story, huh?

...I see it this way : HD&L are kids. For them holding hands is peak of imagination as it goes for romance [I woud give the boys more credit if not for all of Rosa "Girls are eaky" jokes in the past] and Daisy is aware of this and it's all she imply to them (from their point of view). "Something *romantic* will happend and that's it, you kids are to young to get *romance*".

It makes me think of a scene in "Beauty in the Beast" where Chip ask his mom what Belle and the Beast are talking about and she goes "I tell you when your older"...


As a person who already had two jobs in his life workign with children (as well writen many stories that center on adults or teenagers interacting with kids as the main dynamic) I never found this part odd. I just think it's cute, with Daisy acting like a cool big sisters to the boys "Look, I have to take you away now, but I will give you a small hint that something ADULT will happend in a way you will comprehend/interprate in your own way". :)


BTW -> Daisy going "Shhhh!" is my favorite drawing of Daisy by Rosa. Damm it! She's he last character I ever seen Rosa do annything interesting with so I'm taking as much from this I can..

March 23, 2016 at 4:03 AM  
Blogger Christopher said...

I suppose there's just enough plausible deniability to let concerned parents tell their kids it's just a kiss. Like some parents tell their kids that Bambi's mother was rushed to the vet and was saved by some fast-working paramedics, though she had to move to a warmer climate to recuperate. (Seriously, a lot of parents come up with explanations like that. They parodied it on "The Simpsons" once, where Marge actually eats a page out of a book and a Bambi VHS to keep her kids from learning the sad endings.)

When you think about it, which do you think Scrooge would derive more pleasure from doing– having sex with Goldie, or having an innocent G-rated swim in his money bin with her? I honestly believe the latter.

March 23, 2016 at 4:53 AM  
Blogger Pan Miluś said...

BTW -> Check out this old fan-fiction comic by Katie Sullivan :D

http://www.sullivanet.com/duckburg/myart/webbedbliss

March 23, 2016 at 5:00 AM  
Blogger Achille Talon said...

I knew "Webbed Bliss" already… It's pretty good, though it's more obvious that the art is fanmade than with other fan comics I know.

…Pan Milùs, what is this "violins" business ? 'cause in our French translation, what Scrooge is singing at that point is After the ball, since that's what Goldie was singing when Scrooge first met her, per Back to the Klondike.

As for how the "Not for a Junior Woodchuck" line can be seen… Perhaps they think that Scrooge and Goldie are going to talk about the "good old days" of their youth, and that they might mention what happened in the cabin ?

Also, on another level entirely, this story contains a BIG continuity error: Magica didn't get introduced to Scrooge until 1961. Before that, she wasn't chasing the dime. So there's no way she can be a regular enemy of Scrooge in 1952. Now, you can tell me that Barks's story was actually taking place before 1952, but naw, come on. Don Rosa's whole chronology is based around the idea that Barks's stories took place at the time of their first printing, which is especially obvious in his commentaries for the "Life and Times", for instance where he explains how logically, the "70 years ago" in Voodoo Hoodoo should place the story in 1878, and how it was a big deal that he had to ignore it.

As a whole, the story would make more sense as a 1962 one, celebrating the 60th anniversary of Scrooge's arrival.

March 23, 2016 at 8:54 AM  
Blogger GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

Well...when Rosa's stories take place in relation to Barks' can't avoid being a little vague, given that the latter were written over twenty-five-odd years--more if you count the later scripts. If you're going to say things like "this Rosa story take place in the fifties, this one in the sixties," you're going to have to account for why nobody ages in the interim, and I don't think anybody wants to do that. So I think it's not unreasonable to assume that for Rosa, while there was (of course) a history, all of Barks' present-day stories take place on a single point, as it were.

March 23, 2016 at 10:46 AM  
Blogger TheKKM said...

Well this review was a success, GeoX, wasn't it? How long's it been since you had 30 comments in quick succession and even anonymous posters appearing to snipe at you for daring to take shots at the golden Rosa idol?

I generally subscribe to all you wrote here. Might be bias from me too since I knew Brigitta before Goldie, but Rosa's pushing of Goldie (and Grandpa Beagle) always makes me cringe a bit. As Debbie says, I like Goldie as the symbol of what was lost. It's telling that in LoT her name is Scrooge's Rosebud. Rosebud appears at the start of the movie, and in the end we learn Kane had managed to find it again- but otherwise, we don't see him stopping his career and life to just go "I miss and need my Rosebud!", which is what a lot of Rosa's Goldie feels to me.

(no need to point out the implications of comparing a full-fledged female character to a sled :V )

In combining this with other stories I like where his obsession with Goldie doesn't work, I've lately just started to take Scrooge as kind of senile and prone to wild drastic mood swings. A more serious take on the usual Italian tantrums, I suppose. I like to think he just one day woke up immensely depressed and went I NEED GOLDIE and built a shrine for her, and then a few days later went "why did I do this it's been 50 years" and threw it all back into whatever attic he has.

The story isn't good, but ironically I much prefer their relation as shown in Scarpa's "Arriva Paperetta Yé-Yé!". Scrooge is bashful of the idea of being called to see Goldie again, but mostly acts like "that person who was important to me IN THE PAST and now we're friends with a powerful connection" - he accepts taking Dickie as a ward, he helps her buy the Retirement Home she's in, he worries for her throughout the story since Dickie seems to be a disrespectful ungrateful youth, and worries about the compromise he's made and how he'll disappoint this person that means a lot to him, but not in a way where he'd try to dial back all those years. I'd love to see that story remade, in these post-Rosa years, with a more interesting plot (or a plot told more interesting, rather, since I think the basic premise of "Scrooge takes Goldie's granddaughter as a ward, thinks the girl is a punkish ungrateful youth but turns out she's very caring and just rushes through everything" can work), and if well-done it'd probably become my favourite non-Barks take on Goldie.

March 23, 2016 at 12:01 PM  
Blogger Achille Talon said...

About the Goldie/Rosebud equation… not sure. Goldie's name takes the place of "Rosebud" in the Citizen Kane-like opening of Chapter 12, but according to Don Rosa in the commentary of Chapter 11 (I believe it was chapter 11… at least he says it somewhere !) that the major difference between Scrooge and C. F. Kane is that Scrooge "never lost sight of his own Rosebud, which is the amount of memories he accumulated over the course of his life".

As for "Arriva Peperetta Yé-Yé!"… what is wrong with this story that would call for a remake ? I found scans of its Italian version, but haven't had time to read it yet. So, why don't you like in it, TheKKM ?

March 23, 2016 at 1:17 PM  
Blogger TheKKM said...

It's boring. It's got some nice ideas, but mostly feels like what it is, an excuse to shove Dickie (ha HAH) in. Starts off well, then spends some 20 pages just on antics going LOOK AT HOW WILD SHE IS!

March 23, 2016 at 1:21 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

First a Barks review, then a Rosa review? Yesyesyes. Hopefully, more reviews of Barks/Rosa will come in the following days/weeks/months. And if these reviews convince Review or Die to do more reviews in his website, then double yesyesyes. Still, ths review is a little weird: no mention of the contest, no mention of the return of Blackheart Beagle as the mastermid of the team-up and whose idenity is kept secret until the second half of the tale, no mention of various characters' roles, no mention of how the villain team-up ended, no mention of the two different versions of this story... well, your reviews are always interesting to read, so take it as just constructive criticism.

The story may be less adventurous than treasure hunt stories but is still one of my favourites, and for many reasons: the feels from the relationship between Scrooge and Duckburg, the villain team-up which doesn't feel forced at all, Blackheart's return, Scrooge being separated from his nephews for so long, the final confrontation on the Cornelius Coot statue, Donald's speech, the contribute every character gives to the story (one of the rare instance where Gladstone is likable) and finally the return of Goldie in what I regard as one of Rosa's finest scenes. I totally disgree that this story is meant as a "what if"; in fact, I feel it is one of the most important stories of the Rosa universe.

I remember that back then Don complained on the DCML about the Geoffrey Blum essay which nonchalantly spoiled the ending, end even claimed that it was an unimportant scene, while Don replied that the ending was the most important part of the story.

I don't think the story is meant to be the last one in Rosa's chronology, otherwise the "I'll wait" won't make sense. Still, this makes me remember that in the now defunct The Disney Comics Forum a few people made a chronology of Barks and Rosa stories. Too bad I didn't save them and the archives are lost, but I wonder if someone will try again. One thing to consider is that "Last Sled to Dawson" has a 1954 date on a lodger, but it's hard to think of "A Little Something Special" as happening inbetween "Back to the Klondike" and "Last Sled to Dawson"; it seems like "A Little Something Special" is the end of the trilogy.

@GeoX
"Yeah, I'm familiar with the character from Italian stories, who hardly seems like the same character here. Adding to the confusion is the way people so often conflate Blackheart from "The Fantastic River Race" and Grandpa from "The Money Well." And also that I'm not sure whether said Italian stories are meant to be doing that or not."
People conflate them because they are the same guy. Barks never said nor denied Blackheart from "The Fantastic River Race" and Grandpa from "The Money Well" are the same person, but Rosa did as early as "Cash Flow", and this was confirmed in "Life and Times", in "A Little Something Special" and in "The Beagle Boys vs. the Money Bin". No other author ever denied they are the same person, while there are at least two non-Rosa stories where Grandpa Beagle is called Blackheart: a Danish story from 2002 (D/D 2001-004) and an Italian story from 2015 (I TL 3123-2). If anything, Inducks is wrong for still treating them as separate characters.
(I didn't count IDW 's translated Italian stories where the character is unnamed in the original and gains the name Blackheart only in the translation)
A big difference between Rosa's Grandpa Beagle and the Italian Grandpa Beagle is that the latter is active in the present as the leader of the gang, while the former retired in Christmas 1947 (no wonder, he was about 100 years old...), though he temporarily came out of retirement in 1952 ("A Little Something Special") to use Scrooge's jubilee as a chance to take one last stab as his old enemy.

March 24, 2016 at 7:05 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

@Pan
"Do you think Goldie was pregnant between events in "Prisoner of white agony creck" and "Hearts of Yukon"?"
Obviously not. We know that Prisoner takes place in the spring of 1897 (and in the opening of "The Billionaie of Dismal Downs" we even see the date "May 10, 1897" in the newspaper mentioning the kidnapping, and we know they stayed together for a month and did it in the last night) and Hearts takes place in January 1898. Sorry to disappoint those who believed that Goldie was pregnant.

@Christopher
"When you think about it, which do you think Scrooge would derive more pleasure from doing– having sex with Goldie, or having an innocent G-rated swim in his money bin with her? I honestly believe the latter."
If it's a joke, I am afraid I don't get it. Goldie tryng to swim in money would result in her being like the Beagle Boys at the end of "Only a Poor Old Man".

@Achille
"Also, on another level entirely, this story contains a BIG continuity error: Magica didn't get introduced to Scrooge until 1961. Before that, she wasn't chasing the dime. So there's no way she can be a regular enemy of Scrooge in 1952. Now, you can tell me that Barks's story was actually taking place before 1952, but naw, come on. Don Rosa's whole chronology is based around the idea that Barks's stories took place at the time of their first printing": this is not true, as Don told many times that he regards Barks' latter stories as taking place earlier than their year of publication, and Barks' earlier stories as taking place a few years after their publication, not to mention that Don don't see Barks' stories and even his own stories as necessarily being in chronological order. The "70 years ago" in "Voodoo Hoodoo" (1949) had to be ignored because there's no way Scrooge would be alive 70 years after making his second billion, regardless of which year do you think Voodoo Hoodoo takes place (though in "The Crown of the Crusader Kings" I would have written that Bombie followed Scrooge for forty years rather that fifty years). So, no continuity mistakes at all: simply, Flinthy and Magica has been around for a few years by the (in-universe) year 1952.

On the other hand, this story and the later "Gyro's Fist Invention" retroactively create a continuity mistake regarding an early Rosa story. Let's see how many duck fans here are smart enough to figure it out what I am talking about (not trying to be rude, just a friendly challenge, assuming anyone cares at all). Hint: it's about a date.

March 24, 2016 at 7:06 AM  
Blogger Pan Miluś said...

Duck pragnancy is ony 28 days.

March 24, 2016 at 7:39 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

True, but Disney ducks in general, and Don Rosa's version of Disney ducks in particular, are meant to be human beings charicaturally drawn as ducks. So, the pregnancy time of Disney ducks is nine months.

March 24, 2016 at 8:13 AM  
Blogger GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

People conflate them because they are the same guy. Barks never said nor denied Blackheart from "The Fantastic River Race" and Grandpa from "The Money Well" are the same person, but Rosa did as early as "Cash Flow", and this was confirmed in "Life and Times", in "A Little Something Special" and in "The Beagle Boys vs. the Money Bin"

I...don't see why I'm required to take Rosa's word as gospel.

March 24, 2016 at 10:54 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You are not required to do so, but as I told you there is not a single non-Rosa story which regards them as two different characters, while there are at least two non-Rosa stories (plus extra material like characters biographies in official websites, other articles, IDW translations of foreign stuff etc.) that confirm this.

Are you saying that you see them as two different people or are you just making a point?

March 24, 2016 at 11:40 AM  
Blogger Debbie Anne said...

As much as I like most of Don Rosa's work, he takes the Ducks too seriously sometimes, and that has really had a negative effect on some of the fandom who now expect everything to mesh with Rosa's Life of Scrooge, or it's wrong. To this day, there's still a bit of Barks vs. Rosa animosity among fans that makes me glad that the new IDW Comics run neither of them, so we can just enjoy the stories on their own merits.

March 24, 2016 at 11:54 AM  
Anonymous Review Or Die said...

They ARE the same guy... in Rosa's stories. But even The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Eisner award winning, commissioned as the official biography of Scrooge McDuck for his 45th anniversary, isn't 'canon' in the sense that anyone is required to take his stories in to consideration. If they did, every story would be set in the 40s, 50s and 60s. And Geo pretty thoroughly covered why that's a problem even in the context of Rosa's own work. The good doctor is completely correct in his assertions that people, meaning other authors and fans, conflate the two and that it's confusing.

I'm all for discussing Rosa's canon within the context of Carl Barks and itself. Not so much within the context of other Disney comics, where to my knowledge no one is trying to do that because Europe's had a system that's gone on in a completely different Duck tradition for something like 60 years, and that's gone pretty well for them considering that Donald Duck is (as a whole) the most successful comic in the world.

I promise to do my best to leave defending Egmont and Italian Disney comics to the master in the future, but I do stand by what I said here.

And thank you, Anonymous, for the appreciation of my reviews.

March 24, 2016 at 11:56 AM  
Blogger TheKKM said...

I think anon's point is less that Rosa is canon, and more that other writers accept Rosa's ideas. Rosa said Blackheart Beagle and Grandpa Beagle are the same, and thus we've seen other writers accept that, much like we've seen other writers use Fergus McDuck, or Scrooge's sisters. Not because Rosa's work is undisputable canon and gospel, but because other writers are following parts of it and thus it's worth referring to even in those contexts. From the modern point of view, Blackheart Beagle and Grandpa Beagle are undisputably the same.

Which then leads to me having to say anon's missing GeoX' point, which is that while the situation might be like that after Rosa, we don't know whether before Rosa they were intended by Barks to be the same characters, or whether the Italian writers intended their Grandpa Beagle to be either of Barks' characters. Or the Brazilian one, for that matter. Rosa's irrelevant here, because we're wondering about the panorama before he did his seminal work that others decided to follow.

March 24, 2016 at 12:30 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

@Debbie
"As much as I like most of Don Rosa's work, he takes the Ducks too seriously sometimes": true, and that's what is so great about him and his stories.

"To this day, there's still a bit of Barks vs. Rosa animosity among fans": I must have missed that, because most of the Rosa fans I know are also Barks fans.

@Review Or Die
"They ARE the same guy... in Rosa's stories". And in at least a Danish story. And in at least one Italian story. And in the official webstite of Italian Disney comics. And in other articles. And in IDW's translations of foreign stories. And there are not non-Rosa stories denying this. Just sayin'.

"commissioned as the official biography of Scrooge McDuck for his 45th anniversary": was Lo$ commissioned for Scrooge's 45th anniversary? I never heard that. I only knew of this explanation:

http://www.papersera.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?num=1069256543/3553#3553

There is no mention of Scrooge's 45th anniversary, though ironically the last chapter mentions that Scrooge has been in Duckburg for 45 years...

"And Geo pretty thoroughly covered why that's a problem even in the context of Rosa's own work": can you elaborate on that? I don't understand which problem are you talking about, and I feel like I am missing something.

"I'm all for discussing Rosa's canon within the context of Carl Barks and itself. Not so much within the context of other Disney comics, where to my knowledge no one is trying to do that because Europe's had a system that's gone on in a completely different Duck tradition for something like 60 years": that's partially true, but there are several stories by other authors that make references to facts from Don's stories. An interesting project would be trying to make a list of those refernces.

"And thank you, Anonymous, for the appreciation of my reviews": I really appreciate them and would like to see more. Would you mind if I make comments in the previous entries of your reviews, so that you can update your articles? I am thinking of comments about intertxtuality in these stories, something you alluded to but not always included. Your website could become the main source for those who look for intertextuality references.

March 24, 2016 at 12:33 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

@TheKKM
"I think anon's point is less that Rosa is canon, and more that other writers accept Rosa's ideas. Rosa said Blackheart Beagle and Grandpa Beagle are the same, and thus we've seen other writers accept that"
I was writing my message before I saw yours, and I have to sy you are right: what you said is what I was trying to say.

"Which then leads to me having to say anon's missing GeoX' point, which is that while the situation might be like that after Rosa, we don't know whether before Rosa they were intended by Barks to be the same characters"
Actually in my first message in this discussion I clearly wrote "Barks never said nor denied Blackheart from "The Fantastic River Race" and Grandpa from "The Money Well" are the same person", and I even added that Rosa was the first author to make them the same person, so it's not like I was trying to suggest that Blackheart being Grandpa was an established idea before Rosa.

March 24, 2016 at 12:44 PM  
Blogger Achille Talon said...

The Italian Grandpa Beagle, however, was definitely meant to be Barks's The Money Well Grandpa Beagle.

As for the chronology… I keep my views that in my headcanon, Barks's stories happened at the date of their release, but anyway, you were wondering whether anyone had tried to do a timeline of Barks/Rosa stories since the DCF attempt was lost: we did on Picsou Wiki, though taking the dates of release of Barks's stories as canon.

March 24, 2016 at 1:01 PM  
Anonymous Review or Die said...

Anonymous:

I think it's probably best I avoid discussion of American Duck/Mouse comics, and certainly European ones. But I stand by my point that Duck stories don't have a set canon. And the idea of HDL remaining the same age, and the timeline in general, lasting over 30 years when portrayed 'realistically' is not workable. You just have to kind of roll with that one.

If you look at some interviews that were given out, and I am entirely too tired to list that today, the biography bit was apparently something Rosa finangled Egmont in to doing rather than having Disney carry out the project themselves, as they had intended. He got the job of producing it to boot. The source for this might be the Don Rosa Library, but frankly I don't remember.

I would be happy to see your comments, as the articles were written long before I has the chance to read the Don Rosa Classics, or more of Barks' work than I have access to today. And in general if I missed something it's good to know. Please be aware that I'm unlikely to correct anything related to non-Barks or non-Rosa comics, as they are not germane to the series.

March 24, 2016 at 1:08 PM  
Blogger Debbie Anne said...

The animosity I've seen tends to be with some (but not all) Barks fans, the ones who regard any Duck story not by Carl Barks as garbage. Admittedly, there seems not to be as many of them, but woe unto anyone posting a Rosa image in certain Carl Barks Facebook groups... A flame war will ensue. Personally, I like both artists.

I agree, that Don's taking the Ducks a bit more seriously adds a level to his stories that isn't there in some of your more "standard" stories, but I also enjoy the more light-hearted stories as well, and I'm glad that not all of them are as "heavy" as Rosa's.
Sorry if I stirred up a hornet's nest, as that wasn't my intention.

March 24, 2016 at 1:09 PM  
Blogger Pan Miluś said...

I only have "Cash Flow" in Polish. Do the English oryginal realy conects Blackheart and Grandpa?


I think it was clever of Rosa to conect the two characters but - that idea only exist in his universe, especially since Blackheart was super obscura character that was never used out-side of Rosas stories.

In "Money Well" Grandpa appears not to recoginze who Scrooge is from what I recall.

March 24, 2016 at 3:11 PM  
Blogger GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

Anybody who remembers the late lamented Disney Comics Forum will also remember some rather nasty clashes between Barks and Rosa partisans. These things are well-documented.

And JEEZ, I don't particularly care whether people want to say Grandpa and Blackheart are the same person. But it's not even just that I don't buy this "Rosa said it, I believe it, that settles it" business; it's more broadly that I don't believe in a single canon (good lord, how theological can this debate get?), let alone a rather stridently-asserted canon. Also, as TheKKM notes, the original question here, which hasn't been answered, is who exactly the older Beagle in innumerable vintage Italian stories was originally conceptualized as being.

March 24, 2016 at 4:04 PM  
Anonymous Review Or Die said...

It's weird how the word canon has been co-opted by nerdery. Sorry for getting quite so in to the wrong topic though! I didn't mean to exacerbate, but to mitigate such things.

I will leave you with the only bit of the indulgence I can offer for such acts: the image of holy wars over whether The Magic Hourglass really happened or not, led by Generals wearing Scrooge's Back to the Klondike and Life and Times Yukon outfits respectively.

March 24, 2016 at 4:23 PM  
Blogger Achille Talon said...

But I answered to that. He's definitely the same as Barks's The Money Well Grandpa Beagle; the Italians originally drew him closer to his Barks counterpart, but some artists, notably Carpi, progressively reduced his beard to just a thin collar. (And even there, it's more of a matter of coloring; sometimes, the stories which you have in a colorization where it's just a thin beard-collar have his whole chin and the spot under his nose colored white as well, to imply he's still got the big beard Barks, Rosa and Strobl used to give him).

I don't believe he had any connections to Blackheart before Don Rosa came along.

March 24, 2016 at 4:26 PM  
Anonymous Elaine said...

Pan--From the last panel of p. 5 of "Cash Flow", Beagle at the head of the line speaking: "Oh, what a dark day! I'm just glad Blackheart Beagle can't see his grandsons stooping to stealing apples!"

March 24, 2016 at 8:29 PM  
Blogger Pan Miluś said...

Ah, ok. In Polish translation he simply mentions 'Grandpa Beagle' (then agian this story was publish here way after "Life and Times of Srooge McDuck" the translators was aware they are "one")

March 25, 2016 at 2:32 AM  
Blogger Pan Miluś said...

BTW - Thanks Elaine :)

March 25, 2016 at 2:33 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

@Achille
I guess the choice of chronology is a matter of taste. I mantain Don's view that Barks's later stories happen in an earlier date, as the whole point of Don setting his stories in the 1950's (instead of the 1980's, 1990's and 2000's) is that this way we can easily explain why the characters don't age. Still, I am curious about the timeline made by Picsou Wiki: can you provide a link?

@Review or Die
"And the idea of HDL remaining the same age, and the timeline in general, lasting over 30 years when portrayed 'realistically' is not workable": actually it's easily workable, at least if we use Don Rosa's idea that Barks' stories from the 1960's take place in the 1950's.

"If you look at some interviews that were given out, and I am entirely too tired to list that today, the biography bit was apparently something Rosa finangled Egmont in to doing rather than having Disney carry out the project themselves, as they had intended. He got the job of producing it to boot. The source for this might be the Don Rosa Library, but frankly I don't remember." You remember well, though apparently you missed the link I posted that explains everything (it's an article from DRL):

http://www.papersera.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?num=1069256543/3553#3553

There is noting, however, that suggests Lo$ was meant to celebrate Scrooge's 45th anniversary, so I wonder where did you got the idea.

"I would be happy to see your comments, as the articles were written long before I has the chance to read the Don Rosa Classics, or more of Barks' work than I have access to today.": do you think you can remove the requirement of e-mail and name for writing in your website? Anyway, my idea is to help you accomplish what you wrote in July 2012: "I’m going to discuss the continuity in Rosa’s stories. Not just the continuity of Rosa’s connections to Barks, but of the continuity Rosa created within his own work, which is by far a more complex entity".

@Debbie
I wasn't aware of these Facebook pages, though I know of a Dutch forum where some hardcore Barks fans regularly post insults like this one:
"What's really sad, is that crooks and liars like Rosa get all the attention and readers believe him when he says Barks did this-or-that wrong. :(."
But I think situations like this one are rarer than we think. Most Barks fan I know are also Rosa fans, and vice versa. Personally, I consider myself both a Barks fan and a Rosa fan.

"Sorry if I stirred up a hornet's nest": I don't think you did.

March 25, 2016 at 6:09 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

@Pan
"I only have "Cash Flow" in Polish. Do the English oryginal realy conects Blackheart and Grandpa?": I don't need to answer this anymore, as Elaine was faster than me.

"I think it was clever of Rosa to conect the two characters but - that idea only exist in his universe": I also think it was clever, though you must have missed a few messeges where I pointed out how this idea is also present in story by other authors.

"In "Money Well" Grandpa appears not to recoginze who Scrooge is from what I recall.": it may seems so, but the story doesn't wastes much time to confirm or deny this, so the thing it's left to interpretation. That's why I can easily buy Don's explanation:

"Barks did "The Money Well" with Grandpa Beagle in 1958. I told of how Grandpa Beagle had already met $crooge on the Mississippi in the 1880's, and the reason I did that is because Barks originally said that was so in a story he did in 1957. [...] the Grandpa Beagle in Barks' "Money Well" was either supposed to be the same as "Blackheart Beagle" (as I decided was so) or one of Blackheart's sons shown in that 1880 Mississippi story a year earlier. Either way, the character should still know $crooge in modern times. It was Barks who contradicted himself, but he didn't do it through an error... it just wasn't his style to refer back to old stories and perhaps confuse a reader who had not seen that story. And it doesn't actually need to even be considered a contradiction -- let's say that in "The Money Well" Grandpa Beagle only *momentarily* did not recognize $crooge or understand what $crooge would be doing in his shack."

March 25, 2016 at 6:12 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

@GeoX
"And JEEZ, I don't particularly care whether people want to say Grandpa and Blackheart are the same person": I'm not sure of why you seem to heat yourself up so much about your idea of the character, and if this has something to do with the fact that you didn't even mention him in your review of this story in which he is the main villain, but whatever. If you like the idea of them being two different pople, I'm not going to argue against that. Just know that no story support your idea. You will not find a story where Grandpa Beagle picks a photo of Blackheart and says "he is our ancestor" or something like that.
Oh, and I am not sure of what you mean by "stridently-asserted canon".

"Also, as TheKKM notes, the original question here, which hasn't been answered, is who exactly the older Beagle in innumerable vintage Italian stories was originally conceptualized as being.": oh, is that all you wanted to know? You could have said that more clearly. The answer, which was already given, is that he was meant to be the same character from "The Money Well", and until recently no thought went into whether he was the same as Blackeart or not.

@Review Or Die
"I will leave you with the only bit of the indulgence I can offer for such acts: the image of holy wars over whether The Magic Hourglass really happened or not": I am not a guy who fights holy wars, but I do view "The Magic Hourglass" as non-canon.

"led by Generals wearing Scrooge's Back to the Klondike and Life and Times Yukon outfits respectively.": I know this was meant to be only a joke, but what is this outfit bit that you are talking about? The Yukon outfit from "Life and Time" is the same one shown in "Back to the Klondike".

@Achille
"the Italians originally drew him closer to his Barks counterpart, but some artists, notably Carpi, progressively reduced his beard to just a thin collar": this varies from story to story, depending on the artist. Some artists reduce his beard is reduced to a think collar, other artist draws a longer beard like Barks did. Grandpa Beagle alaso appears in the 2015 videogame "The Duckforce Rises". An interesting article about the character can be found in the blog Disney Comics Randomness:

http://disneycomicsrandomness.blogspot.it/2015/10/grandpa-beagle.html

March 25, 2016 at 6:13 AM  
Anonymous Review Or Die said...

Comment away, I didn't realize it was a requirement at all.

March 25, 2016 at 7:08 AM  
Blogger GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

Look, anonymous, either you dial back the passive aggressiveness, or I'm going to start deleting your comments.

March 25, 2016 at 10:59 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm sorry you found me to be aggressive, especially since in the past my comments in this blog have had a different reception on your part, and even in the discussion above some people seem to have found useful the information I added.

I don't find my messages aggressive: in fact, I started by saying how I find good ("yesyesyes") that you are still reviewing these stories. Sure, I said that parts of this review are strange, but I also added that bit was meant as a constructive criticism. After all, you have set the bar pretty high with your past reviews, and so I've had high expectations for when you would write one for "A Little Something Special", especially since you have hinted at other themes in your 2012 review of "The Last Lord of El Dorado":

"Glomgold is brought back to Rosa's first story, and it very fully and completely ends the conflict. ... or at least, that's what I say up until I look at "A Little Something Special", which actually does end every conflict very decisively"

But even it ur review was different that what I expected to find, I still thinks it underlines many interesting points.

It's true that I wrote "I'm not sure of why you seem to heat yourself up so much about your idea of the character", but it wasn't meant as an insult, it's just that when you talk about Blackheart your messages seem to have a completely different tone than your usual messages, and it really seems to me that for some reason the subject heats you up (if it means what I think: English is not my first language).

The only thing I wrote that I could see as possibly being involuntarily aggressive was this part :"If you like the idea of them being two different pople, I'm not going to argue against that. Just know that no story support your idea". The hasty tone on my part was meant to close the discussion on that particular subject, as I felt we were running in circle saying the same things because I wasn't making my point clear and I didn't see what your point was.

Also, when I said that I didn't know what you meant with "stridently-asserted canon", I wasn't being rhetorical, I was (indirectly) asking a question, as Google Translate gives me gibberish when I search "stridently-asserted" and similar expressions.

Finally, my use of "The answer, which was already given, is that [...]" was meant as a bit of self-deprecation for the fact that I clicked on "Publish Your Comment" this morning for a message that I almost finished to write last night, and so I had to do a few rewrites because a few people were faster than me in many answers (for example, Elaine had already answered a question directed to me regarding "Cash Flow").

I hope this clarification will help matters, as I don't want to be seen here as an unwanted guest.

(By the way, not all the "anonymous" comments here are mine: I did not write the first one, the one that reads "I thought it was a pretty good story and should not have been overanalyzed.")

March 25, 2016 at 1:16 PM  
Blogger GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

For the record, it was this sentence in particular that really jumped out at me as the dictionary definition of passive aggressive:

I'm not sure of why you seem to heat yourself up so much about your idea of the character, and if this has something to do with the fact that you didn't even mention him in your review of this story in which he is the main villain, but whatever.

...but I'm willing to chalk it up to language differences. No hard feelings, I hope. I never imagined that you were the anonymous who wrote that dismissive one-line comment, but I WOULD request that in the future, you come up with a dern pseudonym to use. It's a very awkward situation when you don't have a fake name to address someone by.

March 25, 2016 at 3:41 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Now that I read it again I see how that bit could be seen as a bit aggressive, though it makes more sense in the context of the ongoing discussion with many misunderstandings: it *is* strange that Blackheart is not mentioned in a review of a story in which he is the main villain, and I *did* wondered if this was related to your strong idea on the character identification. My "but whatever" was meant as a "whatever it is the reason, it doesn't really matter and we can close here the discussion on this point so we can focus on the other subjects".

I'll say that I found a bit odd your "I...don't see why I'm required to take Rosa's word as gospel.", since I wasn't suggesting that you (or anyone) should, and since your following replies (like "I don't particularly care whether people want to say Grandpa and Blackheart are the same person") didn't answer my question ("Are you saying that you see them as two different people or are you just making a point?") and seemed to miss my point. There's also the fact that I had to write many times that there are non-Rosa writers who identified the two characters before other users noticed it (probably because there are many messages here, including long ones, and some messages by different users are written at the same time); anyway, in the end it become clear that you meant to ask who the Italian Grandpa was beant to be at the beginning, and we now clarified everything.

No hard feelings, like you said. And it looks like I has been (a little) less verbose than usual.

A pseudonym? I will think about it in the future.

March 25, 2016 at 6:13 PM  
Blogger GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

I should also say: congratulations, all! This is now comfortably the most-commented-upon blog post I've ever written. Coming in second is "The Lentils of Babylon," at a paltry forty-two comments. Third is "Prisoner of White Agony Creek," at forty, but I'm not sure if that should really count, since so many of those are from, uh, that woman.

March 25, 2016 at 7:25 PM  
Blogger Richie said...

Hey guys what did I mis--

Oh wow.

Pan should request stories more often :P

March 25, 2016 at 7:44 PM  
Anonymous Jonathan Gray said...

*pops in meekly*

I dont care about the continuity minutiae as long as the story is good and the characters are acting like themselves.

*pops out meekly having contributed absolutely nothing*

March 25, 2016 at 10:28 PM  
Anonymous Jonathan Gray Again said...

Oh... And the story being fun, also matters quite a bit... And that's that :)

March 25, 2016 at 10:29 PM  
Blogger GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

Ooh! A celebrity!

March 25, 2016 at 11:35 PM  
Anonymous Jonathan Gray One More Time said...

WHERE?!?

March 25, 2016 at 11:41 PM  
Blogger Debbie Anne said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

March 26, 2016 at 1:17 AM  
Blogger Pan Miluś said...

Since this is apparently our new forum... HAPPY EASTER YOU ALL!!! :) :) :) Let the colors of the eggs be with you! Have a Bunny-ryfic time! ^_^


@ Richie Well now that you mention it I always wanted to see GeoX review that one story where Gyro...
*dodges a brick*
Never mind :)


P.S.
I know if GeoX review "A little something special" it will have a cool efect but this goes beyond my hopes and dreams :) I love my oracle powers :)

March 26, 2016 at 4:36 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Most-commented blog post? That's great!

And since there are so many people here, I want to know people opinion about this: do you see "A Little Something Special" as a sequel to "Back to the Klondike" and "Last Sled to Dawson", or do you think that it's meant as a sequel to "Back to the Klondike" but a prequel to "Last Sled to Dawson"?

March 26, 2016 at 5:51 AM  
Blogger Pan Miluś said...

I never seen them as sequels as "episodes"/chapters and the order is as Rosa and Barks writen them.

In "Last Sled..." you get a sense this if first time Scrooge and Goldie meet since "Back to Klondike" plus in "Sled" she is shown to be in better condition then in "Klondike" where she lives in rags and is very skinny.

Also - since in "Sled" Goldie has a new home (adres) and buisness of her own so it would be more eassy for the Ducks to conctat here (or keep in touch in general) then in "Klondike..." where she lives in Scrooges old cabin in White Agony Creek.

March 26, 2016 at 6:01 AM  
Blogger Achille Talon said...

Well… In my personal headcanon, where Barks's stories happened at the date of their first printing, that would mean that Scrooge didn't meet again with Soapy Slick until 1965, so "Last Sled to Dawson" can't have taken place before that. However, it is entirely plausible that, by 1962 when "A Little Something Special" would have happened, Goldie would have already been in charge of her restaurant, allowing the Ducks to find her more easily.

Actually, in the ending of "Last Sled", I always had this feeling that the natural conclusion to this story would be Scrooge and Goldie finally reuniting, and getting married. I don't see how they could get in disagreement again after that particular story. Per Don Rosa stories timeline, it would then be plausible that "Last Sled" is 1967, and that finding the chocolate box made Scrooge change his mind about his initial answer to Goldie's proposal in "Little Something Special", and finally retire and marry her.

March 26, 2016 at 6:30 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

@Pan, Achille
Thank you for your answers. So, Achille, you think "Last Sled" didn't happen until at least 1965, right? As weird as this idea is to me, I think everyone is free to decide where to place the stories in the chronology. Me, I do the opposite of you, and for example I think even early Barks story like "The Golden Fleecing" happen at an earlier date (it's because of the mention in "Last Sled").

By the way, did Picsou Wiki make a timeline? Where can I see it?

And, on an unrealted topic: does anyone here has pictures of the whole sequence with Della Duck in the Dutch story for Donald's 80th anniversary?

March 26, 2016 at 6:52 AM  
Blogger Achille Talon said...

The Picsou Wiki timeline (which is not quite finished yet) is here: http://fr.picsou.wikia.com/wiki/Chronologie_dans_les_histoires_de_Don_Rosa#Hypoth.C3.A8ses_de_dates_des_histoires_de_Don_Rosa

You can help it by posting your thoughts on this forum thread:

http://fr.picsou.wikia.com/wiki/Fil:40340

March 26, 2016 at 8:24 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks for the link, Achille, though I can't avoid cringing while reading a timeline that places "A Little Something Special" in 1962 (?!?!) rather than 1952.

"You can help it by posting your thoughts on this forum thread": these days I am busy, but maybe I will when I have time.

March 26, 2016 at 9:00 AM  
Blogger Debbie Anne said...

A Little Something Special is a tribute story for Scrooge's anniversary, and because of the sheer amount of characters all stuck together in one story, it doesn't neatly fit into any timeline, nor was it meant to. Don Rosa looks to have been thinking that it would have been fun putting all of McDuck's antagonists into one story, and the scene with Goldie seems to have been the best way he could think of to include her into the Scrooge tribute story. It appears to me to be one of those rare Rosa done-in-one stories that don't impact his internal sense of continuity.

March 26, 2016 at 10:23 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

@Debbie
"A Little Something Special is a tribute story for Scrooge's anniversary, and because of the sheer amount of characters all stuck together in one story, it doesn't neatly fit into any timeline, nor was it meant to"

This is not true. The story fits into Don Rosa's timeline and it was meant to, as the main point of said timeline is that Barks' stories do not necessarily take place when they were published.

For examle, there is this fan question on the Papersera Forum (2009):

"And if I can do another question, this time about the chronology ... I'm curious to know if you consider the story Barks produced from the late 50s to the 1967 to be set always in the period spanning between 1950 to 1955."

Don Rosa's answer (which confirms what he had already said many times when asked about this):

"That's exactly right! Furthermore, I like to think that the Barks stories published in the 40's are tales of future events! Ha! Now, remember that this is only my personal idea inside my personal head. My "private joke" (that's not really a joke). So please don't accuse me of trying to inflict this idea on the readers! This is simply how I enjoy thinking of it. But as I say, it pleases me more than the alternative of my favorite characters actually being immortal fairy-tale beings."

Long story short: you may want to place Barks' stories when they were written, and it's a legitimate choice, but you can't claim (as I think you are doing) that Don Rosa does the same. You can say that "A Little Something Special" doesn't fit into your timeline, but you can't say that it doesn't fit into Don Rosa's timeline or that it wasn't meant to.

"the scene with Goldie seems to have been the best way he could think of to include her into the Scrooge tribute story": this is basically what Blum claimed was Don's intention, but Don denied this and even added that her appearance at the end is the most important things in the story.

"It appears to me to be one of those rare Rosa done-in-one stories that don't impact his internal sense of continuity": I don't see why.

March 26, 2016 at 11:05 AM  
Blogger GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

You know, it's that "NO! You're WRONG!" tone that alienates people. Just saying.

Anyway, I think it's perfectly reasonable to imagine that, at the very least, Rosa was taking a more relaxed view of the continuity than he might've been otherwise. Certainly, it's an awkward fit otherwise. That's certainly how it feels.

Incidentally, this is what I dislike most about the whole Rosa continuity thing: sure, it's fun to think about (well, in general; right now, this monster thread has made me heartily sick of it). But, realistically, it's also preposterous, and you can't think about it too closely--otherwise, you get things like this idea that all Barks stories must be compressed into a very short timeframe. Barks grew and changed as a writer in all kinds of ways over the course of his career, and you have to understand individual stories within that context. To try to just cram them altogether in a jumble is to implicitly deny this. If you're that narrowly focused on a phantom continuity, you're going to miss the messy complexity and richness of Barks' work, and all in the name of what? I mean, as Rosa notes, this isn't something he's insisting upon, so I don't blame him personally, but as this and other threads have made clear, it's an idea a lot of people buy into, and I think it's an inherently limiting one.

March 26, 2016 at 5:18 PM  
Anonymous Review Or Die said...

Normally I am not in favor of "like" buttons, but I agree with Geo so strongly that if I was nodding to indicate it my head would fly off, and I have nothing else to add to that post.

March 26, 2016 at 11:54 PM  
Blogger Monkey_Feyerabend said...

82 comments?!?? People, you do need a new english disney comics forum! :)

March 30, 2016 at 4:09 AM  
Blogger Jeffyo said...

At the risk of my simple observation never being seen by anyone two weeks later at the end of this longest-ever-by-twice comment section, I've always thought (since childhood) that Scrooge's infatuation with Glittering Goldie may have had a lot to do with her name. His number-one love has always been money; so I'm thinking that if her name had been, say, Glittering Edith, his blinkus of the thinkus concerning her may have been permanent.

April 11, 2016 at 10:02 AM  
Blogger Achille Talon said...

That's a mean-spirited thought… but I do find it appealing. I dunno. Don Rosa would never buy that, but Barks, if he were talking about his own Back to the Klondike ? Perhaps.

April 11, 2016 at 1:56 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

@Jeffyo
Scrooge's love for Goldie would be there because of her name? To each his own (idea), I guess, but to me it seems a creepy/disturbing though and it would strike me as out of character for Scrooge.

April 12, 2016 at 2:46 PM  
Anonymous Dutch Duckfan Down Under said...

I will join the choir of "dang, I'm too late!". All this talk of of continuity and character development is one of the things that sets Rosa apart from me. You just wouldn't get this with any other writer! In fact, it feels like it deserves its own thread on the new Disney forum (or have I missed the beating and is the horse dead now? ;) ).

I always see discussions like these like "The Great Game" that fans of Sherlock Holmes pretend to play: pretending that it's all real and makes internal sense based on hints and a LOT of imagination. It's fascinating in its own way.

April 12, 2016 at 5:52 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

@Anonymous Dutch Duckfan Down Under
I think "The Great Game" is sort of a hit or miss... it is fun in the beginning, but not every "gamer" knows where it is better to stop, and in my opinion this is what makes Rosa's continuity interesting and fascinating: the fact that is there when it needs to be there (stories that happen before 1950, the origin stories), and then evolves into a present where stories don't change the status quo and we don't even know which story comes before which story, and yet we still get plenty of references.

By the way, since you are Dutch, do you have the Dutch story from 2014 ("80 is prachtig") which shows the return of Della Duck?

April 13, 2016 at 3:11 AM  
Blogger Achille Talon said...

"a present where stories don't change the status quo": With an exception. Actually, Glomgold is permanently foiled at the end of The Last Lord of El Dorado, which most people don't notice because we unconsciously known that Glomgold's not supposed to be foiled permanently… but from Don Rosa's perspective, it's very clear!

As for “80 is praachtig”, I for one can at least tell you that it's not "about Della's return". For one, the Della sequence is just a part of the story (which is a big, multi-sequence stuff about all of Donald's friends and acquaintances and how they met him), and, second, the sequence provides an explanation for why Della isn't coming back, not her return.

April 13, 2016 at 5:06 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

@Achille Talon
True, there are exceptions, like the Glomgold situation you described above. To quote GeoX's 2012 review of "The Last Lord of El Dorado": "Glomgold is brought back to Rosa's first story, and it very fully and completely ends the conflict. ... or at least, that's what I say up until I look at "A Little Something Special", which actually does end every conflict very decisively"

Thank you for your explanation about "80 is praachtig". However, I already knew that, as I read various summaries and even saw many scanned pages from the story: I only wrote "the return of Della Duck" for a quick identification of the story (though I edited my message before sening it and added the story title so that the identification would even be more clear). Plus, there is a "return" in a loose sense, as she interacts with her sons in a story set in the present, even though the interaction is just through a monitor. The problem is that I can't find the COMPLETE sequence about Della, even if I put together all the images I got from different sources. I hope I can someday get the complete sequence, but it would be great if I could just find some Dutch or Brazilian duckfan that would help me contextualize the images I already heve, by telling me which panels of which pages are those images from.

April 13, 2016 at 8:53 AM  
Blogger Pan Miluś said...

Interesting trivia time - When Scrooge is hiting Grandpa Beagle with his cane in the head he starts yelling dates. All match their meetings during "Life and Times" chapters. One date Scrooge yells is "1908" which dosen't math any story.

Years ago I ask Mr. Rosa about this when he was regular on a Italian forum and he wad nice enough to gave a very nice and long awnser. Here it is ;

[I ask about the date and ended with saying that the entire thing is very "mysterious"...]


"Yes, it is! Good question. I checked my original storyboard-script and those panels with the saucer-bike fight are not even there. I sometimes changed my own stories during the drawing stage.
I guess I added 1908 to make a reference to another "Life of $crooge" meeting with the original Beagle Boys in the early-20th-Century. In my notes I had ideas for a story set in Africa with $crooge and Teddy Roosevelt during T.R.'s famous safari after his presidential terms, but that took place in 1909. However, another idea I had... and one involving an event that is all over the news today!... was set in Siberia in 1908 and involved the "Tunguska Event" when the asteroid exploded. It would involve Gyro's grandfather again, and maybe I had the idea to get the Beagles there to be more familiar faces. But I never tried to figure out any plot logistics. I think I eventually decided that there could be very little character involvement with a single giant explosion in the middle of a wilderness."

April 15, 2016 at 6:54 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

@Pan Miluś
Thanks for reminding me of the detalis of Don's answer to your question about the 1908 date, it has been a few years since I read it.

But you also mentioned Don saying "I checked my original storyboard-script and those panels with the saucer-bike fight are not even there. I sometimes changed my own stories during the drawing stage". Apparently Don didn't remember why he couldn't find the saucer-bike fight in his storyboard-script: for the American publication of the story, he added a few panels (and enlarged some existing panels) to turn the original version done for Egmont (28 pages) in a 29-page story; the saucer-bike fight only appears in the extended version.

More details about this, with pictures and an explanation by Don Rosa himself:
http://classic-web.archive.org/web/20131127185658/http://duckman.pettho.com/2worlds/special.html

April 15, 2016 at 11:08 AM  
Blogger GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

Interesting as heck!

April 15, 2016 at 3:08 PM  
Blogger TheKKM said...

So GeoX, how's about dropping the regular blog format and just futurely posting everything in this very historical and remarkable comments section?

April 15, 2016 at 3:13 PM  
Blogger GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

I think this thread has broken me. I may never blog again.

April 15, 2016 at 11:52 PM  
Blogger Pan Miluś said...

Oh, come on Slightly Irregular GeoX! If annything you should be super-duper-extra proud and motivated :)

You made a blog post thad made people come together and comment/discuss like they never coomment/discuss before! Your like that thing on the end of the Grinch that made Whos come together to sing and hold hands!
- Christmas?
Yes! Exactly! Your just like Christmas or... I don't know... Moses!
Great job my friend, great job :D



P.S.
For those who don't know, the latest episode of the new Mickey Mouse cartoon series feature bier apperance by the Beagle Boys and the Phantom Blot! HURRAY!!! Barks and Gottfredson forever!!!!

April 16, 2016 at 3:24 AM  
Blogger GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

Yeah! That's right! I gotta believe!

April 16, 2016 at 10:19 AM  
Blogger Achille Talon said...

I just had an excellent idea. Let's push this thing to a hundred comments -- we're so close. All we need is two people agreeing with me and saying so, plus one comment whose content will basically be "100th comment"! C'mon, make a little effort, everyone !

April 23, 2016 at 10:32 AM  
Blogger Pan Miluś said...

You really think It could work?

April 23, 2016 at 11:14 AM  
Blogger GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

Doesn't seem very plausible to me.

April 23, 2016 at 12:09 PM  
Blogger TheKKM said...

All these comments will eventually be lost, like text in a page. Time for this post to die.

April 23, 2016 at 12:13 PM  
Blogger GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

PLEASE ACCEPT THIS IMAGINARY CERTIFICATE OF ACHIEVEMENT.

April 23, 2016 at 3:50 PM  
Blogger Micelangeloo said...

I can not help but notice that in the panel where Goldie say "Him and a bunch of other idiots" . She pulls down her blouse in front. Could it have happened somthing in between the two panels? She flashed probably not, But what could have happened here?

May 4, 2016 at 12:52 PM  
Blogger Achille Talon said...

Rereading your paragraph about the 'craziness' of Scrooge and Goldie being 'destined' to get back together… there's a difference between Scrooge and Goldie's romance and the first romance of the average real person that you mentioned. The only reason they broke up was an accident. The ground just happened to quake when Scrooge was on his way to propose, and blah blah blah you know the story. They never stopped loving each other. This wedding would be finally doing something long-delayed, not a divorced couple getting back together.

May 4, 2016 at 2:48 PM  
Blogger Pan Miluś said...

Speaking of this story (man we had quite a debate some time ago, ey?) talking with my friend I realized that Rosa in some interviews etc. mention that Magica in his version has no acutall magical powers as he tries to make her as closer to Bark early version as possible so she has magic wands etc. but no powers without them. (Which I find very interesting)

YET in this story we clearly see Magica shooting magical beams from her hand... which is hard to explain for her to do if she'ment to be only a mear mortal. Oh, well...

I'm still sticking to my theory that in Barks stories she was ment to be insane but just happened to have magic itmes.

February 10, 2017 at 2:14 PM  
Blogger Miguel Madeira said...

Even about Grandpa Beagle - in the Portuguese/Brazilian translations/stories, there are (or, at least, were, in the 1980s) two "old beagles" (who are both called "Grandpa Beagle" in inducks and, afaik, never acted together) - the "Vovô Metralha" (probably the Barks' "Grandpa Beagle") and the "Metralha Veterano" (the Italian version); in the Brazilian-made stories, what "Vovô Metralha" mostly do is to tell stories about the past (his past, or the past of Beagle family), and, in his younger days was known as "Grande Metralha", and had frequent encounters/conflicts with Scrooge (including as kids). The "Metralha Veterano", in his stories (probably all Italian-made), is usually the leader of the gang.

In some reprints of the 1990s, "Metralha Veterano" is, now, "Vovô Metralha", without distinction between the two (?) characters.

February 21, 2017 at 9:21 AM  
Anonymous Loke said...

Re: Magica shooting beams from her hands -- in Barks' "The Unsafe Safe" Magica zaps people with beams from her hands, which are revealed to be coming from a device strapped to her wrist after it runs out of battery power. I imagine Rosa had a similar device in mind when he drew this story.

February 24, 2017 at 6:44 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Hi Geo,

I generally agreed with your points, but there is one thing that I feel you didn't get it. In Rosa's universe, one of the reasons why Goldie meant so much to Scrooge was because he met her in KLONDIKE. That means Goldie was not only a love interest, but also represented part of his past, and that part was very important for his life. Rosa has emphasized many times that Scrooge valued his momeries, it's kind of like he was a poor old man living in the past. Goldie actually represented "something he has lost""something he used to have" here, like what has been told in "the Last Salad to Dawson". That could explain why Scrooge cannot forget her in half a century. Really, compared with "Love in the Time of Cholera", Scrooge did have more reasons to have a sentimental attachment to that girl, in the former story the love began with "a glance", which I found was far less convincing.

March 18, 2017 at 12:28 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Don't get me wrong, I actually don't quite like the idea of "soulmate", and feel it would be much better to write it more...how to say? Realistic? But the relationship itself does make sense in Rosa universe.

PS: I have read your blog for a few months and this is the first time I posted a comment here, if I speak too straightforward and sounds not that friendly, then I must apologize for my wording!

March 18, 2017 at 12:36 PM  
Blogger GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

You're good! Thanks for commenting. And you're probably right; I think I touched on these issues in my entry on "Back to the Klondike."

March 19, 2017 at 3:03 AM  
Anonymous loke said...

I still enjoy rereading this great review and its many comments, but tbh I wish you hadn't totally deleted the entire final section of the original post (or that you would restore it if possible, alongside the rewritten version), as it would make the discussion in the comments section a bit easier to follow.

August 4, 2021 at 7:59 PM  
Blogger Pan Miluś said...

I'm sick, in bed and so I re-read some old Barks stories, some Rosa stories and now I re-read this blog and all the comments - boy what an adventure we once had - and two things I like to note:

1) Some one mentioned an continiuty error in 'Gyro first invention'. The only error that stirke me in that story is Scrooge making a refrence to Glomgold despite the fact in "Rosa chronology" this story take place BEFORE the first Barks story, henc before the two character meet in present day.


2) Someone mentioned there is a refrence that Grandpa Beagle being the "Big boss around here" is taken out of "The Money Well". I re-read this one (Hurray for Fantagraphic) and I must admit, I can't find anything that would imply this. The closes is that Grandpa mention he "ran everybody else away!" [from his shack] but that's a far leap from what Rosa's Grandpa Blackeart talking about.

November 5, 2022 at 8:00 PM  

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